Brakes Dragging

Are your shoes bonded or riveted? One time I had a new set of riveted shoes, put them on and adjusted to where I had just a slight drag on the drum. I noticed when driving that my pedal did not feel right and took more of hard pedal push to get them to brake. I tore the shoes back off and set them in the drum to verify they looked good on the drum surface when I noticed the brake material was raised up on the upper portion of the shoe. Upon closer inspection I discovered a piece of rivet was under the brake material causing the brake material to have a slight rise in that spot.

I found the same thing on the other set of shoes. So what I believe was happening is when I adjusted the brakes manually I was only feeling drag from the top 1-2" of brake shoe and the adjusters would also adjust the bottom causing the entire shoe to drag. Lots of good advice above, but definitely get a infra red gun and check heat at top/bottom of drum. I would also pop the drum off and take a look at the brake material to ensure it is snug/flat against the shoe itself.

 

not sure if you found the root cause here...but I found this thread while researching similar issues with my 75 cj5. Thought i would share in case you've run into something similar. My situation was actually pretty dangerous, figured it was worth sharing.

Rear driver disk brake conversion would get super hot after about 20 min of driving... after much frustration/master cylinder rebuild, plunger adjustment (had just changed brake light switch and originally thought I'd screwed the adjustment up)... i finally took off the tire and started looking at the caliper/brackets. I found that one side of the caliper was ground down and the pad was worn much further than I would have expected. I removed the caliper (thinking to replace it) and noticed that my axel was loose... tore into that and found that the backing plate holding my axel on wasn't attached to the axel anymore and i was able to just pull my axel out without removing the backing plate from the tube. uh oh...

Removed the axel and found that the bearing was shot (missing and mostly welded to the tube)... took the other axel out and noticed both were twisted (spines twisted)... Everything came out of the passenger side fairly easily, but couldn't get the race out of the driver side. I had to get a die grinder on the driver side race and broke it out with a chisel. I finally got the race out of the driver's side and found that the race must've spun and ate into the axel tube (no longer fit for duty )... so...

long story short what I thought was a brake problem was actually the caliper saving my life (keeping my axel in the tube on the freeway) .. Guessing the Mini spool and SBC conversion put too much strain on the axel and the long tube headers/Flowmaster shorty race mufflers kept me from hearing a problem.

Decided to replace the entire D44 with an East coast gears 489 and selectable locker (rather than the mini spool the PO had installed). Upgraded axel tube, Chromoly shafts and bearings and new brakes. Was a VERY expensive lesson on my side. Also removing the long tubes and switching to shorty headers and real mufflers.

Fun times... fun times. Been waiting about 50 days for my new axel. If i can figure out how to upload pix i will. Anyone wanna buy a slightly used Dana 44 (issues), axel (spares?) or SSBC rear disk brake conversion (brand new) set up?

 

Pretty scary to see. A buddy of mine was towing his CJ7 with a D44 rear end. Lost the passengers tire and axle at freeway speeds.

 

Thanks, good lesson on thinking outside of normal.

 

I was driving my 74 when the axle and I parted ways at highway speed made for an interesting ride.

 

E brake cable can easily be sandwiched between backing plate and drum, and if you don’t inspect all the way around the plate before placing the drum on this could happen with a slack e brake cable. May not drag with just the drum but put the wheel on and torque it down, that’s when it will drag.